This disclosure relates in general to a content delivery network (CDN) and, but not by way of limitation, to intermediate caching and processing to more efficiently utilize the CDN.
A CDN is a large distributed system of servers deployed in multiple data centers in the Internet. The goal of a CDN is to serve content to end-users with high availability and high performance. Besides better performance and availability, CDNs also offload the traffic served directly from the content provider's origin infrastructure. CDNs can include geographically distributed points of presence (POPs) to locate edge servers close to end users. CDNs are capable of delivering content in high demand with higher levels of quality of service (QoS). Content can be requested by universal resource locator (URL) from a CDN. Various techniques are used to route a URL request to a nearby POP, for example, in order to efficiently retrieve content.
Customers are using CDNs and cloud services in more creative ways. Applications, storage, and other services are being provided remotely. New forms and formats for content delivery are constantly being provided that can possibly provide greater access to content, faster transfer rates, and less burden on origin servers.